Atrocity Alert is a weekly publication by the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect highlighting and updating situations where populations are at risk of, or are enduring, mass atrocity crimes.

Burma/Myanmar

Army “clearance operations” continue in Burma/Myanmar’s Arakan/Rakhine state amidst increasing reports of widespread human rights abuses perpetrated against the ethnic Rohingya minority. In addition to the systematic destruction of more than 1,000 homes, religious structures and other buildings, the army has allegedly perpetrated extrajudicial executions, torture, and rape. Humanitarian assistance to thousands of displaced civilians continues to be blocked. According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, these crimes have been accompanied by a “renewed spike in hate speech” and inflammatory anti-Rohingya rhetoric, which the government has failed to condemn. On 29 November the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, urged the government to investigate all alleged violations and find a “sustainable solution to the situation of the Rohingya Muslims and other religious and ethnic minorities” that is in full compliance with international human rights standards.

Syria

Two weeks into a renewed offensive on Eastern Aleppo by the Syrian Government, opposition fighters have been forced out of more than a third of the territory they controlled in the city. Government advances have been accompanied by the most intense airstrikes since opposition forces seized over half of Aleppo in 2012. Civilians trapped in East Aleppo continue to bear the brunt of the bombing and other indiscriminate attacks. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, as of the 30 November, as many as 25,000 people have been displaced in Eastern Aleppo, and it is likely that thousands more will flee in the coming days. Besieged civilians in Eastern Aleppo have no access to food and emergency medical care, and attacks continue even as they attempt to leave the city. Some armed opposition groups have also allegedly prevented civilians from fleeing. France and the United Kingdom called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to address the situation in Aleppo. The meeting took place today, 30 November, but despite ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity being perpetrated in Aleppo, there was no substantive outcome.

Central African Republic

Clashes in Central African Republic between two armed groups, the Front Populaire pour la Renaissance de la Centrafrique (FRPC) and the Union pour la paix en Centrafrique (UPC), in the town of Bria since 21 November have resulted in at least 85 civilians killed and 11,000 displaced. During the violence, FRPC reportedly targeted ethnic Fulani for attacks, carrying out house-to-house searches, abducting and killing residents, and preventing Fulani from receiving medical treatment in local hospitals. Peacekeepers from the UN stabilization mission in CAR (MINUSCA) were rapidly deployed to the area in order to protect civilians. On 25 November the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, issued a statement stressing that these targeted killings of Fulani, “could constitute crimes under international law that can be prosecuted before national or international courts.”